Conventionally, as a leather-like sheet resembling natural leather, a full grain-finished leather-like sheet provided with a grain-finished skin layer on the surface, and a suede-finished leather-like sheet or nubuck-finished leather-like sheet having a napped surface are known. In general, the surface of the nubuck-finished leather-like sheet has shorter naps than those of the surface of the suede-finished leather-like sheet.
The natural nubuck-finished leather is a leather product having a velvet-like surface that is produced by napping the grain layer of a leather by buffing. The natural nubuck-finished leather has the so-called slimy touch, which provides a moist clinging touch when being touched with a finger. In the conventional nubuck-finished leather-like sheet, it has been difficult to maintain a slimy touch that is sensed on the natural nubuck-finished leather.
As a specific example of a nubuck-finished leather-like sheet with an improved slimy touch, PTL 1 below discloses a napped leather-like sheet that includes an entangled non-woven fabric made of ultrafine fibers and an elastic polymer contained therein and includes naps made of ultrafine fibers formed on one or both surfaces thereof, wherein at least one silk protein substance selected from a silk protein and a silk protein partial hydrolysate and a softener are impregnated into a nap portion of the napped leather-like sheet and throughout the thickness of the entangled non-woven fabric containing the elastic polymer.
Also, for example, PTL 2 below discloses a nubuck-finished sheet-like material in which a foam layer made of a polyurethane resin formed by reaction between a hot-melt urethane prepolymer and a urethane curing agent is stacked on a fibrous base material including, on at least one surface thereof, pile fiber fragments made of non-loop-pile fibers, the foam layer being stacked on the surface of the fibrous base material on the side where the pile fiber fragments are included, in a state in which the foam layer coexists with the pile fiber fragments, wherein the tips of at least some of the pile fiber fragments protrude in the form of naps on the surface of the foam layer, and the surface of the protruding pile fiber fragments is covered with a protective film.